Senate Resolution 362

Senate Resolution 362 United States Senate

S.Res. 362

S. Res. 362

• Whereas Coretta Scott King was an inspirational figure and a woman of great strength, grace, and dignity who came to personify the ideals for which her husband fought;
• Whereas Coretta Scott was born and raised in rural Alabama, graduated as the valedictorian from Lincoln High School, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio;
• Whereas Coretta Scott fought to be allowed to teach in the local public schools in Ohio but was denied because of her race;
• Whereas Coretta Scott studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and, while attending school in the City, met a graduate student who was studying for his doctorate degree at Boston University;
• Whereas that graduate student, Martin Luther King, Jr., told her on their first date, ``The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence, and beauty. And you have them all.;
• Whereas Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King, Jr. were married on June 18, 1953, and moved to Montgomery, Alabama;
• Whereas Mrs. King gave birth to her first child, Yolanda, 2 weeks before the start of the Montgomery bus boycott, and protected her when opponents of the boycott bombed the King household;
• Whereas Dr. and Mrs. King were to have 3 more children named Martin Luther, III, Dexter, and Bernice;
• Whereas during the lifetime of Dr. King, Mrs. King balanced the demands of raising their 4 children, serving as the wife of a pastor, and speaking before church, civic, college, fraternal, and peace groups;
• Whereas Mrs. King participated in more than 30 ``Freedom Concerts, where she lectured, read poetry, and sang to raise awareness of and money for the civil rights movement;
• Whereas Mrs. King stood by the side of her husband during many civil rights marches and other notable occasions, including a 1957 trip to Ghana to mark the independence of that country, a 1959 trip to India to visit sites associated with Mahatma Gandhi, and a 1964 trip to Oslo, Norway, to accept a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Dr. King;
• Whereas just 4 days after the assassination of her husband in 1968, Mrs. King led a march of 50,000 people through the streets of Memphis and, later that year, took his place in the Poor People's March to Washington;
• Whereas Mrs. King devoted her energy to carrying on the message of nonviolence and the work of her husband to create a United States in which all people have equal rights;
• Whereas Mrs. King dedicated herself to raising funds and developing programs for the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, where she served as founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer;
• Whereas Mrs. King was instrumental in seeing that the birthday of her husband was honored as a Federal holiday, an occasion first marked in 1986;
• Whereas Mrs. King received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities, and authored 3 books;
• Whereas Mrs. King received the congressional gold medal for her invaluable contributions to the United States as a leader of the civil rights movement;
• Whereas Mrs. King traveled to every corner of the United States and the globe to speak out on behalf of a number of important issues, including racial and economic justice, the rights of women and children, religious freedom, full employment, health care, and education; and
• Whereas Coretta Scott King was a civil rights icon and one of the most influential African Americans in history: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) mourns the loss of Coretta Scott King; (2) admires her lifelong commitment to social justice and peace; (3) recognizes her role as a leading participant in the American Civil Rights Movement and her support to democracy movements world-wide; (4) expresses its sympathies to the family of Coretta Scott king and; (5) directs the Secretary of the Senate to transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to the family of Coretta Scott King.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).